Campaign is hoping to rename South San ISD building

Supporter Irene Jimenez (from left) and Cynthia Rangel and Federico Rangel, relatives of Ray Rangel, are among those backing a campaign to have the Ron Durbon Athletic Center renamed for Ray Rangel, who died in 2005 while serving in Iraq.

Photo By William Luther/San Antonio Express-News

South San ISD's Durbon Center is seen Wednesday, April 4, 2012. The center is currently named after Ron Durbon, a longtime superintendent who was fired last year. Trustees faulted Durbon last year for not thoroughly investigating pornography found on district computers, including one assigned to his son, former athletic director Gary Durbon.

Photo By Courtesy Photo

Staff Sgt. Ray Rangel, an Air Force firefighter, was killed in a rescue mission in Iraq seven years ago.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio Professional Firefighters Local No. 624 Honor Guard prepare the casket of U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Ray Rangel for transport to San Fernando Cemetery No. 3 on Monday, Feb. 21, 2005. Rangel, who was killed in Iraq on Feb. 13, was an Air Force firefighter.

Photo By JOHN DAVENPORT/San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio Professional Firefighters Local No. 624 Honor Guard remove the flag-draped coffin of Air Force Staff Sgt. Ray Rangel at San Fernando Cemetery No. 3 on Monday, Feb. 21, 2005. Rangel, an Air Force firefighter, died on Feb. 13 in Iraq while trying to rescue some soldiers whose vehicle had overturned.

Photo By Courtesy Photo

If the building is renamed for Staff Sgt. Ray Rangel, it won't be the only thing named in his honor. In February 2011, the cantonment area, used to host exercises and training sessions, at Dyess AFB was named for him.

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When South San Antonio Independent School District trustees last year fired Ron Durbon, a longtime superintendent, they produced one more example of the risk of naming buildings after living people who could end up disgraced or mired in controversy.

Now Jessica Jimenez, 31, is leading a campaign to rename the district's Ron Durbon Athletic Center after Staff Sgt. Ray Rangel, an Air Force firefighter killed in a rescue mission in Iraq seven years ago. More than 1,000 people have supported the idea on a Facebook page Jimenez started.

Rangel, a 1994 South San High School graduate, was the first South Texan in the Air Force killed in the Iraq war. The school board will discuss the proposal April 18.

But renaming the building might not be so easy. District officials point out that another South San graduate who happened to have the last name of Rangel also was killed serving his country overseas in recent years. Chris Rangel, 22, a Marine, was felled by enemy fire in 2010 in Afghanistan.

South San trustees faulted Durbon last year for not thoroughly investigating pornography found on district computers, including one assigned to his son, former athletic director Gary Durbon.

“School boards often make business decisions such as approving budgets or curriculum, but naming buildings is inherently a political decision because it is so subjective,” said Beth Plummer, board president of the North East Independent School District, which is revising its naming policy. “It can get quite contentious.”

Examples are legion. Patrick Sullivan, a former sheriff in Colorado, was arrested in November on a charge of suspicion of offering a man methamphetamine in exchange for sex. Sullivan was held in the county jail that was named for him when he retired.

Even naming a building for a deceased person isn't always a safe bet. The University of Texas at Austin in 2010 stripped the names of the Simkins brothers from a park and dormitory after their Ku Klux Klan affiliation was revealed.

“Dead people sometimes get a pass,” said Cal Jillson, a Southern Methodist University political scientist. “But this happens all the time. And there is always a struggle for people that feel it's disrespectful to strip someone of that honor in order to honor someone else.”

Jimenez said her intent isn't to go “anti-Durbon” but to honor “a hero that came from our community and who we could all look up to” in the district from which she graduated in 1999. She has conducted the campaign largely from Austin, where she lives and works, getting supporters in San Antonio to make T-shirts and lobby trustees.

She said she never met Ray Rangel — she graduated years after him — and waited until her mother retired from the district to launch the campaign because she feared retaliation from Durbon supporters.

The district should honor all its veterans, particularly those killed in action — but Ray Rangel lost his life while the athletic center was being built, and it should have been named for him in the first place, she said.

Naming politics

South San has been down this road before.

In 2004, after some public outcry, trustees voted to remove the face of former board president Raul Prado from a campus mural after he was convicted of public corruption.

Prado, who supported the move in a letter sent from jail, is the husband of current board president Connie Prado.

Gary Durbon sued Connie Prado and another trustee for defamation in 2009 for publicizing the pornography allegations. After Prado became president last year, she led the move to oust Ron Durbon.

Prado said she isn't behind the renaming campaign.

“This is something the community took upon themselves,” she said. “But yes, it is a bit of an awkward situation.”

Ron Durbon said the proposed name change doesn't bother him — he suggested naming the center for Victor Zepeda, a South San graduate and Marine killed in a car accident while on leave from his third tour of duty in Afghanistan.

The 2,000-seat center, opened in 2008, was part of a $35 million bond issue. It houses a gymnasium, athletic offices and training facilities.

Gary Durbon ran the athletic department until his reassignment last fall, after an audit prompted an investigation by the Bexar County District Attorney's Office into thousands of dollars missing from football games. He denied wrongdoing and resigned in February. His secretary was indicted last month on charges that she stole and misused the money.

Moving forward

On Feb. 13, 2005, Ray Rangel, 29, went into the water of a canal in northern Iraq to try to save three soldiers whose Humvee had overturned. He suffered hypothermia and drowned.

His father, Federico Rangel, said the athletic center would be the third place renamed for his son. A portion of Dyess AFB near Abilene, where he was stationed, officially reopened last year as Ray Rangel Air Base, and locally, members of American Legion Post 399 voted to shed President Woodrow Wilson's name for Rangel's.

“To be able to see his name on a facility that our future generations in our neighborhood could use would bring great honor, and his story could inspire young people that someone from their backyard did what he did,” Rangel said.

One area school district, Somerset, named one of its elementary schools “Veterans” to be all-inclusive.

“They could ... name it just ‘Rangel' to honor both,” Jillson suggested. “It can be challenging to fairly pick someone.”